Daily Knowledge Boost with Kids Academy: Preschool Fun with Matching and Sorting
Sept. 19, 2024
Before they ever step foot in a school, preschoolers are busy actively forming the building blocks necessary for future academic achievement. Matching and sorting activities play an integral part in developing crucial cognitive skills. It allows preschoolers to build the perceptual skills needed to make observations, recognize patterns, and solve complex problems. Ultimately, matching and sorting can help set the stage for future learning across all subjects.
Matching and Sorting Fun with Kids Academy
An easy way to boost early learning is to practice matching and sorting objects and images by shape, size, color, and more! The best part is that matching and sorting is fun! It feels more like a game, which is so important for young children who learn best through play.
Kids Academy offers several lessons in different subjects that practice this important skill. All activities featured below are found on the interactive Classroom interface. While lessons with more than three activities are only available in Classroom Pro, all activities below can be found on the Kids Academy Website and completed using a web browser.
1. English Language Arts
Lesson: Sort Common into Categories
Preschoolers are still pre-emergent readers, which means they are unable to read independently. However, as toddlers they likely mastered their ABCs and are now ready to learn sight words and new vocabulary. This lesson combines words and ideas from other disciplines, such as science, with ELA skills like reading sight words and vocabulary acquisition.
Activities Overview:
- ‘What Do We Wear in the Weather?’ Worksheet: People talk about the weather daily, making specific vocabulary terms more important. This worksheet tasks learners with matching objects like umbrellas to the type of whether for which we would use them.
- ‘Sorting Animals on the Farm’: Children sort the baby animals to match them with their mamas in this cute sorting and matching worksheet.
- ‘Which doesn’t belong?’ Worksheet: This activity contains groups of objects and it’s your child’s job to look carefully at all of them to determine which item in each group doesn’t belong.
Brain Break: Pipe Cleaner Shapes
To offer a fun break from learning, have kids form different shapes with pipe cleaners! Simply print out a few pictures of common shapes and provide pipe cleaners of different colors and lengths. Show your child a picture and ask him or her to recreate the shape with a pipe cleaner. They can use the same pipe cleaner for each shape, or they may create piles that categorize them in some way, whether by color or size!
2. Math and Early Logic
Lesson: Objects that Fit Together
Matching and sorting games are especially important to forming early mathematics skills because math operations require students to think logically and make observations. In this lesson, not only do learners practice logic and geometry skills, but they are exposed to objects that are associated with other disciplines, such as plants, fruits and vegetables from science.
Activities Overview:
- ‘Objects That Fit Together’ Video: Most children already know that fish cannot live out of water. Using examples from common knowledge, this video simply explains that certain things in life just go together to introduce the concept matching objects.
- ‘Food Match-up’ Worksheet: Complete this mouth-watering activity to determine which ingredients match the food or drink depicted.
- ‘Logic Game Sorting’ Worksheet: To solve this intriguing worksheet, learners must use logic skills to pick the objects in each row that are related to each other.
- ‘What Items Go Together’ Quiz: How are your child’s matching and sorting skills coming along? This quiz assesses their ability to match items based on physical attributes.
Brain Break: Matching and Sorting Scavenger Hunt
Preschoolers need ample breaks from sit-down learning. The best brain breaks are those that include getting up and running around! Take a break from matching and sorting by playing a game. Give them a simple objective: find objects around the house that fit a single criterion. For instance, tell them to collect any objects they can find around the house that are red, or ask them to find any item that can be considered a tool. Set a timer to a minute or two to see how fast they can find their objects!
3. World Around Us
Lesson: Places I Go
As children grow older, they begin to associate specific places with objects to understand how they’re related. This social studies lesson challenges learners to match and sort items to determine which objects came from or belong in which place.
Activities Overview:
- ‘Let’s Go to the Store’ Worksheet: It’s easy to find teddy bears in toy shops, but they’re unlikely to be found in a clothing store. This activity presents kids with items that need to be categorized and matched to the store from which it came.
- ‘Grocery Store’ Worksheet: Which items belong in a grocery store? Not dinosaurs! This cute worksheet tasks preschoolers with sorting items and identifying those that can be found in the grocery store.
Shake Your Sillies Out! Brain Break Songs for Kids
It’s especially important for the youngest of learners to get up and move in between learning sessions! This videoplaylist includes a variety of action-based songs from The Learning Station. Get up and start dancing along to shake your sillies out!
Preschoolers are learning and absorbing new information each day but matching and sorting are two of the most important skills they can build before they go off to school. Use the above lessons to give their learning a healthy boost, and don’t forget to check out the Talented and Gifted app for a more independent learning option!
